Programming framework
Cultural and material
We place high value on cultural experiences and artistic expressions, organizing events to promote Venezuelan culture in our Houston community, fostering connections and supporting artists and businesses. This is primarily so we create a cultural exchange for anyone participating with us in our mission. Our supporters receive in getting to know Venezuela, its culture, and its people better.
Alliances and relationships
We work towards building relationships and alliances with institutions, organizations, and individuals. This allows us to learn more about specific contexts, create collaborations, and improve our programs.
Structure and flexibility
The principal context of Venezuelans everywhere has been uncertainty. We work towards accounting for uncertainty within our activities as they reflect how the Venezuelan crisis creates impact everywhere there are Venezuelan communities.
Focus on Venezuelans
From the beginning of our operations, our driver has been the Venezuelan Complex Humanitarian Emergency. In 2019 we expanded the reach of our mission to support the growing Venezuelan community in Houston due to their institutional vulnerabilities in the US.
Our cultural experiences are geared towards highlighting the Venezuelan culture, creating community and counter balancing the negative narratives.
Programs
Saludos Holiday Weekend - Established in 2022
We designed a full day of Saludos Encuentros in the form of panel discussions framed in combination with our Holiday Saludos Bazaar and Saludos Hallaca Festival as a cultural weekend experience. This weekend experience aims to create and nurture an experiential and collaborative space for artists, businesses and the community, aligned to the mission of Saludos Connection.
Saludos Bazaar - Established in 2016
Holiday Saludos Bazaar brings together vendors, predominantly of Venezuelan descent and a growing number of 500+ guests. It’s an evening of holiday traditions, a feast of Venezuelan food and goods. Our Saludos Bazaar is a community building platform for Houston-based individuals and businesses who participate with us year after year. Holiday Saludos Bazaar serves as a platform for new businesses and entrepreneurs, and a collaborator supporting local charities.
Saludos Encuentros - Established in 2017
Saludos Encuentros events is a collaboration with creative individuals and institutions, in support of their work, promoting them, and promoting their artistic production in tandem with our efforts to create local cultural experiences while raising awareness of our mission.
Saludos Hallaca Festival - Established in 2022
Saludos Hallaca Festival highlights the spectrum of cultural impact derived from the iconic Venezuelan hallaca. This festival brings hallaca makers to showcase and compete, hallaca tasters to participate in the dynamic event, artists creating their works around the cultural treasure that is in the hallaca, and businesses interested in nurturing the hallaca market. Cultural, anthropological, sociological, social and, culinary aspects are showcased and explored, inviting participants to learn and enjoy.
Houston-Venezuelan Networks Building - La Liga - Established in 2019
Our Venezuelan networks building program consists of connecting and promoting the building of networks within the Venezuelan-led organizations and groups in Houston to help amplify the voice of the Venezuelan community in the city. We create opportunities to meet, exchange and promote solidarity by supporting each other’s missions, works, and events. La Liga has been producing together an annual event called El Big Roundup for Venezuela.
Saludos Encuentros beyond Houston - Established in 2017
Saludos Encuentros beyond Houston is a collaboration with creative individuals and institutions. We support them and their work, and through this collaboration we both amplify our reach to raise awareness about the Complex Humanitarian Emergency in Venezuela.
Women of the Venezuelan Chaos
As part of our cultural and educational programs, we partnered with the documentary Women of the Venezuelan Chaos by Margarita Cadenas. We promote the film to raise awareness, in the role and extent of how the crisis impacts Venezuelan women.
El Síndrome de Lisboa
This is a collaboration that was born from the love of storytelling. We partnered with author Eduardo Sanchez Rugeles in sharing his book El Sindrome de Lisboa, capturing the essence of a turbulent time in Venezuela, touching hearts, sparking conversations, and making a difference, one page at a time, raising awareness aligned with the Saludos Connection mission.
Ser para otros
We partnered with Houston-based artist Violette Bule to promote her installation Ser para otros to the art fair ArtBo 2022 in Bogotá, Colombia. Her artwork addresses themes of immigration, displacement, adaptation, identity, and vulnerability. Our partnership is a heartfelt embrace of these themes, raising awareness about the struggles of vulnerable Venezuelans in a truly artistic and profound way, raising awareness aligned with the Saludos Connection mission.
Charitable commitment
Local
Acción Social - Venezuela - AS-V
We have partnered with AS-V to support them in growing and strengthening their operation, organizing and run drives. They serve the destitute Venezuelan community arriving into Houston. We also support their work serving as their fiscal sponsors.
Our Venezuelan organization network building La Liga has been a driver for these collaborations to blossom with AS-V and other Venezuelan-led organizations where we have supported each other with volunteers and donations.
Programa Ayuda al Migrante - Virgen de Coromoto
In partnership with AS-V and a group of committed community members, such as catholic priest Padre Rafael Davila, we have been working in raising funds and helping new arrivals start their new lives in Houston. We learn of these families that seek to stay together from local refuges, and we start the process of supporting them in finding a job and a permanent home, which we help furnish through the donation of home items. We have been able to help families to start a new life in Houston, including the reunification of family members separated at the border.
Abroad
SOS Somos Portuguesa
Our primary charity alliance is with the Venezuelan nonprofit SOS Somos Portuguesa. They are a volunteer run organization in the state of Portuguesa. They organize medical missions throughout neighboring villages to bring primary care, medicine and medical attention to low resource setting communities. Our alliance focuses on our supplying of material items as well as transfer of knowledge to help strengthen their mission. We have been able to help them grow their reach through micro grants and donations. They are able to serve over 5,000 people every year. We support the work of local doctors volunteering with SOS Somos Portuguesa providing primary care.
Saludos Connection is committed to fostering and continuing these projects and relationships in order to keep running its mission of building connections to facilitate access to health care, nutrition, and education through Venezuelan cultural experiences.
Our Approach
Growth in numbers
We work towards building relationships and alliances with institutions and individuals. This allows us to learn more about specific contexts, and with new knowledge comes new ways to improve our programs. Alongside strong partners with different expertises, we can take bigger steps toward a healthier Venezuela.
A little under the radar
Because of our size and the uncertain nature of the Venezuelan situation, we have been working without lifting our profile too high. Part of the uncertainty makes us cautious and selective in our collaborations.
